It is an object of the present invention to provide polypeptides having protease activity and polynucleotides encoding the polypeptides.
In the detergent industry enzymes have for more than 30 years been implemented in washing formulations. Enzymes used in such formulations comprise proteases, lipases, amylases, cellulases, mannosidases as well as other enzymes or mixtures thereof. Commercially most important enzymes are proteases.
WO 89/06270 (Novozymes A/S) discloses a detergent composition comprising a protease with a narrow substrate specificity, namely a trypsin-like protease capable of cleaving peptide bonds at C-terminal side of lysine or arginine.
Further WO 94/25583 discloses the cloning of a DNA sequence encoding a Fusarium trypsin-like protease and obtaining expression of an active trypsin-like protease from said DNA-sequence.
However, even though a number of useful proteases and protease variants have been described, there is still a need for further improvement of proteases or protease variants for a number of industrial uses.
In particular, the problem of maintaining high activity in the presence of other components of typical detergent compositions tends to reduce the performance of proteases.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide new proteases, which are suitable for use in detergents for the use in for example laundry and/or cleaning of hard surfaces.
Fungi, and especially filamentous fungi, are widely used commercially because of their ability to secrete remarkably high levels of proteins.
Among the filamentous fungi species belonging to the genus Aspergillus have a long history of commercial use for the production of endogenous and heterologous proteins.
One disadvantage with most microorganisms used for the production of proteins is the inherent production of proteases which may subject a protein product of interest to degradation due to proteolysis.
Various ways of avoiding this have been envisaged. Among other solutions it has been suggested to delete or disrupt the genes encoding the various proteases.
WO 2006/110677 discloses recombinant fungal host cell belonging to the species Aspergillus niger, wherein the chromosomal genes derA, derB, htmA, mnn9, mnn10, ochA, pepAa, pepAb, pepAc, pepAd, pepF and combination had been inactivated in order to reduce degradation of heterologously produced proteins.
Unfortunately, some fungi produce a high number of different proteases.
A need is therefore persisting for strains of filamentous fungi exhibiting no or very low levels of protease production.